By Srijan Sharma
Shamsud-Din Jabbar, a 42-year-old United States Army veteran, crashed a Ford F-150 pickup truck into a crowd of New Orleans residents celebrating New Year’s Day. He then exited the vehicle and opened fire on the crowd, killing 15 people and injuring 30 more. This kind of lone wolf attack on US soil came after almost eight quiet years — the last similar incident was the October 31, 2017, New York City truck attack, which killed eight people and injured another 12.
The ISIS terror group took responsibility for the latter. However, in 2025, the terror dynamics have changed. This recent attack perhaps has indicated a dangerous shift in ISIS’s striking patterns.
ISIS lone wolf attacks
ISIS has a classic pair of striking patterns: Suicide bombings and lone-wolf attacks. The former has been the most frequent type since January 2024, as it was used in the January 3 bombings in Kerman, Iran, and the March 22 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow, Russia. ISIS has used high-intensity bombings ever since their capabilities began dwindling.
The last reported lone wolf attack in a metropolitan city took place last year in Solingen, Germany, where a Syrian ISIS member stabbed three men during a festival. Similarly, two lone wolf attacks took place on October 16 and December 2, 2023 in Brussels, Belgium and Paris, France, respectively. The assessment shows ISIS was not able to execute a deadly lone wolf attack in the West as it did in Nice, France on July 14, 2016, when a truck rammed a crowd celebrating Bastille Day, killing 86 people and injuring 434 more.
Most ISIS strikes have been recorded in Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East; these have mostly been suicide bombings or coordinated mass shootings. ISIS attacks in Western countries were fewer and limited to stabbing incidents; these can be viewed as multiple attempts to execute a lone wolf attack or coordinated lone wolf attacks on a large scale, like they did in Paris in the November 13, 2015 strike and Nice in the aforementioned 2016 attack.
Capabilities are limited, but resurgence is possible
Since 2017, ISIS’s capabilities started declining after the US intensified its counterterror operations. The nation’s ongoing Operation Inherent Resolve has led to some notable success against ISIS, causing the group’s terrorist presence to dip substantially from 2017 to 2019. In 2019, ISIS was defeated in Syria and Libya. That October, US forces killed ISIS Chief Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Operation Kayla Mueller. In 2023, the US killed several senior leaders of ISIS and detained around 79 of its terrorists.
The greatest blow came when US forces killed Abu Muhammad al-Adnani, the head of ISIS’s intelligence/foreign branch, Emni, on August 30, 2016. Adnani’s death crippled ISIS’s striking and recruitment capabilities. The terror group is now scrambled, with its capability to strike the West destroyed. ISIS’s presence is now limited to Africa, Central Asia and the Middle East. For the past two years, high-intensity attacks have only been recorded in those regions.
ISIS is weakened, but perhaps its potential for resurgence has not been meaningfully considered. The patterns also suggest that whenever its influence is seen to be dwindling, it tries to send a message to the West by carrying out major attacks in West African or Middle Eastern countries.
The US-led coalition has intensified its operations against ISIS’s limited and fragmented presence for one year, leading to 200 missionsagainst the group since January 2024. According to reports, the US-led forces have killed 44 terrorists and detained around 166 others.
Despite an intensified operation, the outfit still holds a tight grip over its fragmented network and has attempted to capitalize on various opportunities to make a comeback. There are arguably three primary reasons why ISIS could see a strong revival: The first is the US’s shifting focus on Iran due to the Israel–Hamas conflict. The second is the increased destabilization in Syria and West Africa, and now the fall of the Syrian government. The third is the increasing freedom ISIS’s Khorāsānis — residents of the Greater Khorāsān area of the Iranian Plateau — are finding to operate in South and Central Asia, especially in Afghanistan.
These have facilitated ISIS’s regrouping at the regional level, which has given the outfit occasional opportunities to carry out low-intensity terror strikes across the globe. The fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad government and the mobilization of various Islamic coalitions there have given ISIS, especially Khorāsānis, a window to further resurge and increase their striking capabilities.
However, the resurgence factor is not the only thing to worry about; a possible shift in the ISIS striking pattern could help ISIS showcase its capabilities as well.
A shift in striking pattern
ISIS terror strikes can be classified into three patterns. The first is direct: ISIS directly carries out its strikes. The second is indirect: ISIS enables an attack and indirectly carries out its strikes by connecting to attackers through the Internet. An example of this was the Curtis Culwell Center attack in Garland, Texas on May 3, 2015 — one of the attackers who opened fire at the community center was in contact with ISIS through encrypted texts.
The third pattern is inspired: Using online propaganda, ISIS inspires self-radicalized individuals to carry out lone wolf attacks on their own. An example is the 2016 Nice attack. Though the perpetrator, Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, acted on his own, ISIS later took credit for his actions. Conversely, there is the April 7, 2017 truck attack in Stockholm, Sweden, where a similar vehicle ramming incident took place. In this case, ISIS did not take credit for the self-radicalized man’s attack. The organization was under intense pressure at that time, and its presence and capabilities had been significantly damaged by US-led coalition forces; by the end of the year, ISIS was defeated in Iraq.
ISIS is once again under pressure, this time in Syria, thanks to US airstrikes. As it weaves an opportunity to resurge, some believe the group has resorted to enhancing online propaganda and carrying out inspired attacks without direct involvement. The reason for this possible change to its striking pattern is to ensure resurgence and keep limited striking capabilities intact without exposing itself. Additionally, it seeks to avoid instant retaliatory and offensive responses from the US, which could severely damage ISIS’s chances of resurgence in Syria and elsewhere.
If left unchecked, a new, lethal wave of inspired ISIS terror could emerge.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
- About the author: Srijan Sharma is a national security analyst specializing in intelligence and security analysis. He has extensively written on matters of security and strategic affairs for various institutions, journals, and newspapers, including Telegraph, ThePrint, and Organiser. Currently, he is a guest contributor to the JNU School of International Studies. He has also served as Defence Editor for the Woodward Journal.
- Source: This article was published by Fair Observer